PVH

Engaging employees around water stewardship

THE REALITY

Companies are struggling to attract and retain top talent. The competition for the brightest minds is fierce, and companies are starting to recognize that salaries and perks are simply not enough to keep employees happy. Working for a company that puts purpose and doing good at the core of its business model is increasingly important.

OUR APPROACH

Safeguarding and preserving water is one of PVH’s 10 CR commitments and an integral part of the company’s CR strategy. They wanted their globally based employees to feel proud of the work that PVH has done—and will continue to do—around water stewardship. We knew we needed to do more than just tell employees about its CR efforts. Young employees want to feel they are part of something bigger than themselves, and they also want to be a part of the impact. So, we needed to engage them in the issue and show them how they can take action alongside their employer.

We knew that a surefire way to get young people involved is to make it fun, easy, and competitive! We created The PVH2O Challenge – an employee competition that highlighted the ways they could conserve water. Everything from wearing all blue to signify they were taking part in the competition to daily challenges like using only a mug of water for their entire morning routine (washing your face, brushing your teeth, shaving, etc.) were used to activate retail and corporate employees alike. They were encouraged to post their ideas on the internal platform for a chance at weekly prizes and the grand prize – a trip to India where PVH is preserving water basins.

THE IMPACT

In just three weeks, PVH doubled the amount of downloads of their internal comms app they use for these types of initiatives. And among the thousands of UGC posts from their employees showing what they were doing to conserve water were those from Asia and Europe, who had traditionally not engaged in internal comms efforts.

Best of all were the sentiments among its global employees of pride and excitement of PVH’s commitment to water stewardship – a fact many, if not most, were not aware of previously.